Friday Night Slights
By Lew
October 5, 2004
Posted on Tue, Oct. 05, 2004
FRIDAY NIGHT SLIGHTS Polytechnic football remains a class act even if no one is watching
By Avery Holton
Special to the Star-Telegram
By the time Polytechnic's game against Southwest got off the ground Friday night, rain had turned Farrington Field into a Slip'N'Slide. And while fans began pouring into their seats on Southwest's side, some 900 in all, a light mist provided the only company for the Parrots.
Without an organized marching band, six drum-liners tried to raise the spirits of their team. Eight cheerleaders, without a coach on hand, desperately rattled off yells to a dozen or so unenthusiastic students.
No cheers answered. Polytechnic has drawn about 300 fans through five straight losses. That's not an average. That's a total.
"People don't want to support us," said Dean Collins, the team's shifty quarterback who is good enough to draw serious attention from recruiters at Arizona State. "That's OK. We just support ourselves."
It has nearly become the motto for players housed within the high school, where 57 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. Encased by chain-link fences, boarded into classrooms with plywood planks serving as doors, the Parrot football players have dealt with brush-offs all season.
When Fort Worth announced plans to renovate schools around the city last year, Polytechnic wound up near the bottom of a heaping pile. Now well into the school year, the football team practices on the same field where construction workers bulldoze and lay concrete, trying to install a new track by November.
When it rains, players work out in a field house darkened by poor lighting and cramped with rusting weights. Some could go home to work out with the free weights they scraped together in the off-season, but they choose to stay at school.
There are no spirit-lifting pep rallies or glittering locker signs. No booster club and no marching band. Only criticisms from other students, most of whom haven't seen Polytechnic play.
"The fan support isn't there all the time," Parrots coach Robert Phelps said. "But what do these kids have to rush home to? Most of them get their only stability here at school. That's why we stress how important school is.
"Playing the game can be a motivator, but these kids need to understand the importance of continuing their education."
That's why Phelps -- who graduated from Notre Dame with a 1998 Orange Bowl ring and a mechanical engineering degree -- forces academics.
When grades were released last week, Phelps didn't have to prepare for the large number of kids he would have lost when he took over coaching duties back in 2001. Instead, he released just one player from the varsity team.
"It's a testament to what's going on here," Polytechnic principal Joe Scott said. "We've got kids coming and staying in school under [coach Phelps]. While the results may not be what we want them to be on the playing field, I walk by and see players in tutoring, coming to Saturday classes and taking preparation courses for the SAT. That's something great."
While the school's attendance hovers around 87 percent, rare are the days when a Parrot football player misses class. That would be grounds for severe punishment. Not from Phelps, but from the team.
"We work as a family," Collins said. "If you aren't showing up for practice, we'll find you. If you aren't making the grades, we'll make you."
That hard-nosed attitude has pressed Collins, who moved from tailback to quarterback after the team lost its starting quarterback to suspension and its backup to injury, to attend tutorials on weekdays and Saturday classes for help in English.
He's even enrolled in an SAT prep course the school began offering this year to help its athletes find their way into colleges. The average Polytechnic student will score a 775 on the college entrance exam, nearly 200 points lower than the national average.
"Making that SAT score is what keeps a lot of kids from going to the next level," Phelps said. "You can have a decent grade-point average and be the greatest player around, but if you don't make that score, you're not in and none of this matters.
"What these kids are doing by attending that class is showing they aren't giving up."
IN THE KNOW
Polytechnic by the numbers
29 Percent of students who passed the TAKS test last year
138 Students skip school on an average day
96 Students who took the SAT last year out of a combined 300-plus juniors and seniors
784 Average SAT score among juniors
986 State average for the SAT
60 Points Collins has raised his SAT score in the prep course
1 Victory for Polytechnic in its last 16 games
Sources: Texas Education Agency, Fort Worth school district
-- Avery Holton
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